Posted on 01/20/2009 2:50:44 AM PST by VU4G10
Newsmax.com Editorial
"This administration has had a good, solid record, and I'm very proud of it. I tell people I leave town with a great sense of accomplishment and my head held high.”
—George W. Bush, Jan. 13, 2009
As the 43rd president waves goodbye to Washington, relatively few Americans share his proud assessment of his own presidency.
George W. Bush leaves the White House with one of the lowest approval ratings in history. According to Gallup, only Richard Nixon and Harry Truman, who suffered the double whammy of a bad economy and the unpopular Korean War, had lower approval ratings when they left the White House.
Today, Bush’s legacy to his successor is two unresolved wars, a global image that is deeply tarnished, and the greatest economic crisis in modern times.
Conservatives who backed Bush in two successive elections have little to show for their efforts. Bush, in fact, has decimated the Republican brand.
Bush oversaw the greatest increase in discretionary social spending in history as the federal government usurped new powers in its war on terror. He placed the United States on a global interventionist path for the elusive goal of “democracy.” Ronald Reagan would not be able to recognize the party he knew, which espoused limited government, protection of personal liberty, and the idea that the U.S. should lead globally by example rather than by force.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
with my typing *skills*, if i tried to respond I'd be here to March ;-)
> We obviously do disagree on what Conservative means.
We probably do disagree, certainly around the edges. I take your points as read: Bush certainly did (and didn’t do) the things you have said. You make your points well.
Elsewhere I’ve written that Bush was a war-time President: IMO that means Prosecute the War and everything else takes a back seat. Everything. Elsewhere I’ve also speculated whether the bailout last autumn (our spring) was actually a “poison-the-well” strategy: the more I think about it, the more I convince myself that it was. It makes sense: if you cannot win then make to victory unpleasant for your opponent. Like it or not, there ain’t much money in the kitty for Obama to spend in delivering his promises, and that’s for real!
> True Conservatives follow the principles of our founding Fathers: “We are friends of freedom, but defenders only of our own.”
It has certainly been 100 years or more since America followed that particular principle. It is arguable whether America ever did!
> We are now indebted to the Red Chinese.
Wouldn’t it be a nasty shock for Peking if America defaulted in their loans? The ChiComs would freak!!
> Bush was an internationalist and intentionally led America into an unnecessary war where we had no realistic threat of invasion.
That is certainly an Isolationist viewpoint, and a legitimate one given that.
I am convinced that Iraq had WMD and that they went to Syria, which is why they were never found. I believe that, given the chance, Saddam would certainly have supported al Qaeda — he was a Sunni and so are they. And he was a rat b@stard and so are they. There was no downside for him doing so — unless he got invaded and hanged.
Iraq may/may not have supported al Qaeda (I think it did) but it was certainly the right place to begin sorting out the militant islam mess. It was terrain that was relatively easy to fight in and it sucked all the bad guys in like a vaccuum to be slaughtered in one convenient place. And it had a good mix of sunni, shiite and kurdish population so that if there were any bad guys from any of these communities they would find it easy enough to get to where they were supposed to be killed.
Anyrate, GWB is finished as President now, for better or for worse, and America now has its first Caesar.
God Bless America
God Bless the Republic
*DieHard*
Feith showed a con man's adeptness at using Kroft's penetrating questions to deflect blame for the costly, bloody Iraq disaster on everyone but himself---where it rightfully belongs
Steve Kroft should have mentioned that Feith is one of the neo-punks that surrounded McCain's candidacy. Punkneo Billy Kristol's Dearest Daddy, Irving, was Giuliani's foreign policy (gag) advisor. Whenever McCain talked of the Hundred Year War his posture changed---as the neocons tightened his leash.
The neos were chomping at the bit to pull puppet McCain into Iran. One envisions Feith at his trusty computer creating the required documents.....as he did to dupe Bush into Iraq. Feith casually showed Steve Kroft his home computer where Feith did the dirty deed.
One hopes Feith's involvement in US foreign-policy is a relic of the wacky neocon movement, which flim-flammed the Washington establishment and allowed lunacy to become respectable. We need to know the mistakes we made that allowed these pink con artists to achieve the status that he did. Bush actually ensconed them in their own WH office of Special Ops.
None of these punks show evidence of gainful employment unless you call sucking off the public teat and lolling around think tanks dreaming up agit-prop, gainful employment.
Steve Kroft needs to give viewers a reprieve from Feith's squalid flim-flam. Kroft needs to interview Dr Stephen Sniegoski, author of the excellent book, "The Transparent Cabal" (IHS Press---on the shelves last August), and ranked in Amazon's top 100 for 21st-century US history books. Critic Philip Weiss reviewed Dr Sniegoski's book June 2008, calling "The Transparent Cabal" superb, calm, analytical.”
Dr Sniegoski's intellectual achievements show how neocons calculatedly joined the Republicans over the issue of an aggressive foreign policy, then let the Nation think Reagan had been given the imprimatur of intellectuals with fancy degrees and media connections.
Some observers suspect part of the deal with Reagan and the Bush’s was the promise not to unleash impeachment....as long as they followed neocon orders.
Philip Weiss: " Thus we have, in Dr Sniegoski's insightful book, the story of how the neos' virulent NON-conservative foreign-policy agenda, of militant transformation, got its nose under the camel's tent. Dr Sniegoski colorfully relates that when they took over, neocons gave position, status and jobs to 'effete young escargot-quaffing armchair neocons.' Dr Sniegoski's calm dissection is a far braver work than other analyses that flnch when it comes to revealing the neocon’s Iraq war plans. Dr Sniegosi is more intellectually-honest about these issues than books that went after the good-vs-evil mentality of the Bush administration. "
Steve Kroft can remedy an oversight and begin an open discussion of how these neo-Jacobins hijacked US foreign policy. It would be a shame of an authentic intellectual like Dr Sniegoski did not get the same media facetime a charlatan like Feith got, because Dr Sniegoski is not media-connected (and has no hidden agenda).
EMAIL Steve Kroft 60m@cbsnews.com
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END NOTES Amazon lists Dr Stephen J Sniegoski's book on the shelves August 1, 2008. Dr Sniegoski holds a doctorate in American history from the University of Maryland, with a specialty in American diplomatic history. He is the author of numerous articles dealing with World War II, the war on Iraq, and political philosophy.
Since you aren’t an American, can I suggest you cease and desist any further attempts to tell Americans what we should do?
I promise, I will continue to ignore your little insignificant country in return.
> Since you aren’t an American, can I suggest you cease and desist any further attempts to tell Americans what we should do?
I’ll take that as your White Flag. I accept your surrender.
> I promise, I will continue to ignore your little insignificant country in return.
Significant is as significant does, mate:
Get back to me when America can field a decent rugby team. Or win The Americas Cup. Or run a budget surplus for years-on-end. Or defend your borders from illegal aliens. Or elect a Conservative president...
President Obama has appointed Dennis Ross as his special envoy to Iran, and overall Middle East “czar.”
Keep in mind, Ross is a hard-line neocon like Douglas Feith, Norman Podhoretz, Richard Perle, etc......all dressed up as a Democrat.
HORRORS Dennis Ross was Bill Clinton's Middle East envoy and he seems to have become more of an neocon. Ross' post-Clinton record includes supporting the Invade Iran Now campaigns in line w/ the neocons' "America as Empire" (global intervention without provocation to establish democracies) which they promulgated under the (ahem) neocon think tank----Project for the New American Century.
Dennis Ross serves as a senior fellow with the 1985-founded Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) founded by ultra-liberal AIPAC ex-president Larry Weinberg; his wife, Barbi Weinberg; AIPAC’s vice president. Its board of advisors includes neopunk Richard Perle and NY Daily News owner (the always "objective") Mort Zuckerman.
In recent years, Ross served on the board of the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, a "think tank" that promotes “the thriving of the Jewish people via professional strategic thinking and planning on issues of primary concern to world Jewry.” May have been financed by Madoff who was connected to numerous non-profits.
Obama's COS, Rahm Emanuel is another neocon dressed up as a Democrat.
Now most American presidents are highly influenced by their advisors-------Nixon and Ford/Kissinger------ Elder Bush/Baker-----Younger Bush/Cheney and the neocons. And when American presidents take positions contrary to particular advisors, it is because the presidents have significant advisors offering contrary views.........we have yet to see that in Obama’s emerging administration.
That happens a lot in politics. People try to convince themselves that they got a good deal -- that the new Mondale or Dole is really better than it looks. But it usually isn't.
For whatever it's worth, Bush was better than Mondale -- or Gore or Kerry for that matter -- would have been.
Actually, conservatives suffer from acute over expectations.
They assume that radical change will come when there is no power to bring the change about. Nancy Pelosi now has the power . Observe carefully if she is able to have her own way.
Even though she walks around with her teeth showing. it is a snarl, not a smile.
So this is a sign that Obama will give Iran a hard time? If so this would be something to have fun with the Sheenan/Moonbat anti-Israel crowd with. I don’t expect Obama will be using force, “All you need is love, and tax credits”
Wow! I thought anyone posting on this site would start with the premise that the dems are mad with power and hell bent on remaking the U.S. into a socialist state. Saying that that needs to be said before trashing the GOP's debasing of conservatism is redundant.
I don't support any democrat at any time. Ever. I, and many others like me, were hoping (based on GW's history as governor and what he said) that at least he would act as a foil to the dems persistent march toward socialism. Instead, he fostered that march. I am angry at Bush and the GOP because no matter how many times the base expressed their needs Bush and the GOP simply thumbed their noses at us.
They’re not mad at the insults. They’re not apparently outraged enough to vote against the enemy. They are outraged enough to vote against the people that are on their side or on whose side they are.
That's debatable. How many politicians do I have in Connecticut that are on my side? NONE. Absolutely none. On a national level I counted on Bush to turn back some of the liberal tide but all he did was open the gates. Where does that leave me?
But none of it still clicks logically to me why you expect — or why you think — by sending your own people out of power adds up to a good thing, especially positioning you for a re-conquest of that power in 2008.
You've got to be kidding. To blame the voters for the GOP's failures is simply absurd. They never stood for anything. It was always the lesser of two evils. Even I get tired of voting that way. The GOP put itself in the position to fail by their actions. Voting for massive government programs in Bush's name is NOT a prescription for success vis-a-vis the conservative base. Why vote for the GOP guy when he's simply going to do the same thing as the Dem guy?
Jim Talent, for some reasons, makes principled conservatives mad, or George Bush makes principled conservatives mad, or some member of the House or a couple of them make principled conservatives mad so we’re going to show ‘em and we’re going to teach ‘em a lesson and we’re going to send Claire McCaskill to the US Senate for six years to practice her kookery.
Why take every argument to the extreme. It's not just principled conservatives but simple conservatives that are dismayed at them. Why can't these people understand that the conservative that balances his check book understands simple economics and sits there in complete dismay at the profligate, bloated spending that the GOP consistently signs off on?
Jeez, they can't even give him credit for keeping us free from terror attack without criticizing him for how he did it. Ok, I'll play...What personal freedoms have been lost that weren't lost long before 9/11? If you can come up with one, how is that Bush's fault? As to the financial cost of keeping us safe? How much did 9/11 cost, not just in dollars and buildings, but people? Who knows what they could have done again and then again and how much those would have cost. Prevention isn't cheap, but better than the disease. Besides, Bush didn't start any of that, he just cleaned up after Clinton.
I'm not Bush's biggest fan, but he's not the reason the republican party is worthless or had it all and lost it all. They did that themselves to themselves. Just listen to McCain or Gingrich or almost any of the so-called republican leadership. They don't sound like Republicans any more. They have all changed since the days of Ronald Reagan...or is this who they always were? What they are is not Bush's fault.
Seriously though, what sort of loserdom leads a fat old man like yourself to involve yourself in another country’s politics to the point that you argue with Americans about what Americans should do for American when you aren’t even an American?
Shove off, kiwi. Focus on your own little loser country and let us tend to our own matters.
I can't think of a more accurate way of assessing the Bush presidency than by pointing out that the previous administration that bears the most striking similarities to it was the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson.
That ain't bashing, and it's not exactly pretty, either.
it’s not just Bush... mccain comes to mind
That is the problem with intelligent people trying to defend Bush, if you go through these posts you cannot draw any other conclusion as to his legacy, you’ve lived it just like I have...
But instead of introspection on what and why he did what he did, you try to lay the blame off on others, many of whom busted their butts trying to bend his liberal policies back to the conservative side or you try to defend his actions by pointing to the coming Obamanation....
Obama would not have taken the oath today if the GOP and their leader President bush had not turned their backs on conservatism... and pushed the country away from the free market and towards socialism... THAT was the final nail in his legacy coffin...
So stop trying to blame conservatives for this mess, put the blame squarely on the President, the GOP and the person that looks back at you in the mirror...
Hey I'm the same way, I voted for Bush twice (although the second time was to keep the troop hating Kerry out), but you have to call a spade a spade or you are kidding yourself, It can't be "Bush Bashing" if the charges are grounded in FACT, So lets be honest... It is not "bashing" it is the TRUTH...
Conservatives and/or GOP loyalist have to get beyond this Bush protectionism or the GOP is going to spend years in the wilderness, that is if they make it back out at all!
Wow, you get really excited talking about the image of a man putting on kneepads.
Maybe you'd be happier on the homosexual agenda thread, Obamyboy! :)
OK, no argument........
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